Follow UsRohit Sharma and India’s misery with the toss continues as they’ve lost the coin flip for the 12th ODI running. It’s an unwanted world record as they become the first team in history to lose the toss 12 ODIs in a row.
12 - India (Nov 2023 - Present)
11 - Netherlands (Mar 2011 - Aug 2013)
9 - England (Jan 2023 - Sep 2023)
9 - England (Jan 2017 - May 2017)
As a result, they’ve been asked to bowl first in the all-important fixture against Pakistan at the Dubai International Stadium.
India are unchanged from the encounter against Bangladesh, meaning Arshdeep Singh continues to warm the bench. However, Pakistan have made a forced change, with Imam-ul-Haq taking the place of the injured Fakhar Zaman. It is to be noted that Fakhar is ruled out of the tournament.
Mohammad Rizwan: "Will bat first, looks like a good surface. Want to put up a good target. Every match is important in ICC events, we will keep things normal. The boys are familiar with these conditions. We have done well here, and we want to do our best today. We lost our last game, but it is past for us now."
Rohit Sharma: "Doesn't really matter, they won the toss so we'll bowl first. Looks similar to the last game, the surface is on the slower side. We have an experienced unit in batting so we know what we need to do if the pitches get slower. Need an overall performance from the team - with bat and ball. The last game wasn't an easy one for us, which is always nice. You want to be under pressure and test yourself."
Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (capt and wk), Salman Agha, Tayyab Tahir, Khushdil Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Abrar Ahmed
Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav
"We are two pitches over from that game where India played Bangladesh. Overcast conditions - absolutely fine - about 31 degrees Celsius, it feels a little bit warmer than that. Dimensions - 70m square either side, 81m down the ground. What we can expect is pretty similar to what we saw a couple of days ago. That time the pitch was on the slower side. There was just a hint of spin for the wrist-spinner and occasional turn for the finger spinner. But the pacers were the ones to take the wickets because the ball wasn't coming onto the bat. They used the slower bouncers to good effect. The spinners kept it quiet in the middle overs. Whichever team that bowls well will be able to contain the batters. This is a pitch where it won't be easy to hit sixes. A score of about 270 should be a score you could defend," say Ian Bishop and Sunil Gavaskar.